Following Disney’s recent announcement of a D23 deep dive panel for Kingdom Hearts, the company has now explained that the franchise is only one of nine under the Disney Games Group portfolio that is worth over a billion dollars. In a post about how “games are helping shape Disney’s next chapter,” EVP of Global Games and Digital Entertainment at Disney, Sean Shoptaw, spoke about how the company values games.
“The way Disney is shaping the future of interactive entertainment through games is really acknowledging that games have become a foundational part of the broader entertainment landscape,” he explained. This strategy has already gone on to pay dividends.
“We’ve built a really foundational footprint in games today,” he continued, going on to mention that the company has “nine games that have grossed over $1 billion at retail. So, it’s about telling truly original stories that really are unique to this medium, specifically.”
Looking to the future, Shoptaw spoke about wanting to build new franchises based on its various IPs, with this year’s attempts including the recently-released fighting game Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine.
“These are platforms where Gen Z [and] Gen Alpha primarily are spending a lot of their time, hanging out with their friends. It’s a really good example of just how powerful and meaningful these worlds can be.”
Disney is also continuing its relationship with Epic Games to tap into the audience that Fortnite has garnered. Shoptaw called the partnership a “really important one” since it gives Disney “a ton of opportunity to bring our great characters, stories, and worlds into that universe and build something truly unique to Disney.”
The Kingdom Hearts deep dive panel will take place on August 15th at 4:30 PM PT, and will feature actors Haley Joel Osment (Sora, Vanitas) and David Gallagher (Riku), along with Kingdom Hearts 4 co-director Tai Yasue. From Disney, the panel will feature voice actor Renée Johnson and Disney & Pixar Games representative Nana Gadd.
It is worth keeping in mind, however, that Disney hasn’t made any official statement about the panel being exclusively about Kingdom Hearts 4. However, the timing of the panel, coming just a few months after Kingdom Hearts 4 got a proper trailer, would indicate that Square Enix and Disney are getting ready to reveal more details about the title.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is being developed for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. The title is slated to be the second entry in the Lost Master story arc that was kicked off in 2020’s Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory. The story will revolve around Sora’s continued battles against the forces of darkness as well as his attempts to escape the Quadratum.
The last mainline entry in the franchise was Kingdom Hearts 3 in 2019, which acted as a grand finale for the Dark Seeker Saga that was first started with the original Kingdom Hearts. It got an expansion in 2020 – ReMind – which revolved around Sora coming to terms with the consequences of some of his choices.
